The Forrest Wood Cup, the world championship of bass fishing, heads to Red River

The FLW Tour Opens have been discontinued for 2013 as an adjustment to the current market demand.

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. (Aug. 28, 2012) – FLW, the world’s premier tournament fishing organization, has announced the 2013 Walmart FLW Tour schedule. The 2013 season will be comprised of six tournaments featuring up to 160 of the best bass anglers in the world. The Forrest Wood Cup, the world championship of bass fishing, will be held on the Red River in the Shreveport-Bossier City area of Louisiana.

Along with the FLW Tour schedule, FLW also announced that the 2013 Walmart BFL All-American presented by Chevy will be held on Nickajack Lake in Chattanooga, Tenn., in conjunction with the FLW Tour event on Lake Chickamauga in Dayton, Tenn. The annual Will Fish for Kids Charity Bass Tournament benefiting Arkansas Children’s Hospital will be held April 15 immediately following the FLW Tour event on Beaver Lake in Rogers, Ark.

The 2013 FLW Tour schedule is listed below and can be viewed at FLWOutdoors.com.

Date Fishery Location

Feb. 7-10 Lake Okeechobee Clewiston, Fla.

March 7-10 Smith Lake Jasper, Ala.

April 11-14 Beaver Lake Rogers, Ark.

May 16-19 Lake Eufaula Eufaula, Ala.

June 6-9 Grand Lake Grove, Okla.

June 27-30 Lake Chickamauga Dayton, Tenn.

Aug. 15-18 Red River Shreveport-Bossier City, La. Forrest Wood Cup

Qualifying tournament payouts are unchanged, with pro anglers competing for a top award of up to $125,000, and co-anglers vying for a top prize of up to $25,000 in each tournament. With a full field, the paybacks will be $10,000 through 50th place and $4,000 through 60th place on the pro side and $1,000 through 50th place and $700 through 60th place on the co-angler side. Entry fees will also remain unchanged at $4,000 per tournament for pros and $700 per tournament for co-anglers.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — “Dare to fail.” That’s been Brandon Card’s sign-off line in several of his recent blogs on Bassmaster.com.

“This sport is about taking chances, and you can’t be always second-guessing yourself when you take a chance,” Card said.

The philosophy works well for him. Saturday, Card, 26, from Caryville, Tenn., was declared the 2012 Bassmaster Elite Series Rookie of the Year.

“All rookies set out at the start of the year to try to win this award,” Card said. “It helps people learn who you are and see what you can do. I’m honored to win it.”

Card outscored nine other Elite rookies by amassing 479 points over the eight tournaments of the regular season. His nearest challenger was Cliff Prince of Palatka, Fla., who came close to overtaking Card during this week’s season finale on Oneida Lake, the Aug. 23-26 Ramada Championship.

Card was one short of a five-bass limit on the second day, and he didn’t make the cut. But Prince survived, giving him another chance to earn enough points to overtake Card. Card had to sweat out the outcome onshore.

His trophy was presented to him at The Great New York State Fair in Syracuse, where the tournament’s Saturday weigh-in took place.

Card started his rookie season with a 21st-place finish on the St. Johns River in Florida. Prince, competing on his home water, bested Card by five places, so Prince took the initial lead in the rookie points race. (One point is awarded for every place achieved.) That was the only time Card was not No. 1 in the rookie ranks.

“I’ve had a blast this year,” Card said. “It’s been an incredible year. I wish I’d ended a lot stronger, but I couldn’t be more pleased with my season. Hopefully I can make a career of this, do it until I retire. That’s my goal.”

Card has been a fisherman as far back as he can remember as a kid in Tennessee. His father broke him in on bobbers and bait. They fished from shore. Card didn’t know much about casting for bass until his older brother Jordan bought a boat. The two spent many hours on Norris Lake near their hometown of LaFollette, Tenn. They began to enter local tournaments in their early teens; Brandon said his first derby was at age 14.

When he left his hometown to attend college at the University of Kentucky, Card joined the fishing team. Coincidentally, this week’s Oneida Lake event marked a return to the place where in 2007 he won his first collegiate tournament. He served three years as team president before he graduated in 2009 with a degree in landscape architecture, and he and his father now own a landscaping business.

Card also has B.A.S.S. Federation Nation experience. He competed for Kentucky, qualifying in 2009 and 2010 for what is now the Cabela’s B.A.S.S. Federation Nation Championship.

In 2011, Card joined the Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Southern Open circuit. His goal was to qualify through the Open for the Elite Series. He made it in one season. He was second in points, well above the Top 5 automatic-in.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Randy Howell was all smiles Saturday afternoon. He took the lead in the Ramada Championship for the second day in a row. Minutes later, his close friend and angling cohort Brent Chapman won the 2012 Toyota Tundra Bassmaster Angler of the Year award.

“It was a crazy day, I’ll tell you,” said Howell. “It was 11:30, and I didn’t have but one fish. I actually caught that one at 11. By 11:30, I knew my fish just weren’t going to bite there today.”

But the Springfield, Ala., pro adjusted. He brought 15 pounds, 10 ounces to the scales to stay in command in the 2012 season finale of the Bassmaster Elite Series. Howell’s three-day total of 47-12 kept him in front of Boyd Duckett of Demopolis, Ala., whose 14-0 of Saturday landed him in second place — again — with 45-6.

They lead the Top 12 who will compete Sunday for the Ramada Championship trophy, $100,000 and an instant qualification for the 2013 Bassmaster Classic.

Howell said he had to move from the part of Oneida Lake he had been camped on all week, targeting schooling smallmouth bass, because the wind kicked up.

“The wind was blowing pretty big waves right down the middle of the lake where I’ve been catching them. I don’t know what it did to them, if the wind pushed them down or what. They just quit feeding,” Howell said.

But he had a Plan B. He actually had a long list of alternate spots and tactics, a strategy he learned after he had several Oneida victories slip through his fingers over the past few years.

“That was in my mind when I practiced, so I found fish in different areas in different parts of the lake, so no matter what happened or where the wind blew, I have somewhere to scratch together a limit,” Howell said.

The spot he moved to produced four smallmouth in an hour and a half on a topwater pattern, he said.

“That saved me, got me my limit at about 1:15,” he said.

Toward the tail end of his day, he decided to cash in on a largemouth spot he’d been saving.

“I pulled up to the waypoint — a mile offshore, in one clump of grass — and made one flip and caught about a 4-pound largemouth,” he said. (It turned out to weigh 3-11.) He culled his smallest smallmouth, gaining more than 2 pounds in weight, he said.

Seneca Falls, N.Y. — Two-time Bassmaster Classic qualifier Pete Gluszek of Mount Laurel, N.J., is ready to make his third Classic appearance. Gluszek leads the Bass Pro Shops Northern Open on Cayuga Lake with an opening limit of five bass weighing 19 pounds, 3 ounces. Just six ounces back is Bassmaster Elite Series pro James Niggemeyer of Van, Texas.

At stake in this finale of the three-event Northern Open season are cash, prizes, a potential berth in the 2013 Classic and invitations to join the 2013 Elite Series. To earn a spot in the Classic, an angler must not only win an Open tournament but fish all three Open events in that division. Gluszek has fished the two previous Northern Opens this year; Niggemeyer has not.

Instead, Niggemeyer came to New York and Cayuga Lake in hopes that it would be a good tune-up for next week’s Elite Series final on nearby Oneida Lake. Now he finds himself in contention to win.

Careful not to give away too much information early in the tournament, Niggemeyer did say that he was surprised he didn’t need to “fizz” his bass today. Veteran anglers know that means he’s catching them in deep water. “Fizzing” is a process used to release gas from a fish’s swim bladder after it’s brought up from depths of 20 or more feet.

Not all of the leaders are fishing deep. Michael Murphy of Gilbert, S.C., is catching some of his bass as shallow as 2 feet. Part of his pattern selection was based on what he found in practice, but part came from physical necessity. Murphy had major shoulder surgery in April and is still recovering. He lacks strength for some maneuvers, and flipping and pitching suits his physical abilities right now.

In the meantime, Murphy was able to flip and pitch 15-13 — good enough for 18th place — into his boat today using an unidentified dark soft plastic bait fished behind a Raines tungsten sinker on a 5/0 hook and 65-pound-test Spiderwire. He’s not getting a lot of bites, but they’re quality fish, and he has them to himself. That could be a big factor here.

The Carhartt Big Bass leader after the first day is Ken Golub of nearby Pitsford, N.Y. His 5-11 largemouth was nearly half his total weight of 11-15 — good enough for 40th place on the pro side.

Among the co-anglers, Stephen Evans of Cleveland, Ohio, leads the way with a co-angler limit of three bass weighing 10-9. His lead is a scant two ounces more than Chris Siclare. Eight other co-anglers are within a pound of the lead.

With the top ranking anglers in each Opens division earning invitations to join the Elite Series in 2013, many eyes are focused on that race. The Northern Open points leader heading into this season finale is Michigan pro Art Ferguson, a four-time Bassmaster Classic qualifier. Unfortunately for Ferguson, he struggled today and caught just one bass weighing 2-1. Without a significant comeback on Day 2, he’ll likely fall in the standings and miss an invitation to join the Elites in 2013.

Savanna, Ill. — Iowa angler Brad Teel was “totally” surprised by a catch today that put him in the lead at the Cabela’s B.A.S.S. Federation Nation Northern Divisional on the Mississippi River.

The 31-year-old machinist from the Cedar Rapids Bassmasters club noted he caught a lot of bass in practice, but he thought the action was sporadic. “I pulled into this one spot (today) and caught all of my fish out of there,” Teel said. “I never caught anything like that in practice.”

His honey hole produced a five-fish limit weighing 14 pounds, 13 ounces to move Teel into the top spot in the overall standings.

Teel avoided his primary spot during practice and kept making adjustments that paid off for him today. “I kind of figured out things to make them bite better throughout the week,” he said. “I still didn’t expect to catch that kind of bag out of that spot.”

Competing in his third divisional, Teel boated a limit by about 7:30 a.m. and continued to work the area for a couple of hours. “Every time I went through the spot, we would catch at least one, but I finally told my partner we had to get out of there because I had to save some of those fish,” he said.

The Independence, Iowa angler frequently fishes the Mississippi River, but usually farther upstream. “I am not real familiar with this pool,” said Teel, who noted this section of the river is fishing differently than his home waters. “I am used to fishing grass, and I am just not getting bit in the grass.”

“The fish were biting pretty decent,” he said. “They weren’t busting shad like they have been, but the clouds kept them up close all day.”

Teel is striving to finish as the top angler on his Iowa team, which would earn him a berth in the Federation Nation Championship (FNC). Other state leaders bidding for FNC berths include Curt Samo of Illinois; Mark Nies, Indiana; Jamie Sochocki, Michigan; Chuck Steinbauer, Minnesota; Steve Strope, South Dakota; Kevin Fassbind, Wisconsin; and Michael Nesbitt, Ohio.

Teel’s Iowa squad leads the team competition with 123 pounds, 7 ounces. “We are all river rats from Iowa,” Teel said of his teammates. The host state of Illinois is in the runner-up spot with 86-1.

The Northern Divisional contestants will take off at about 5:45 a.m. local time tomorrow at Savanna Marina for the second day of competition.